The Kindness of Strangers

Kate Adie, reporting from the world's trouble spots, is so familiar to us that we all recognise her, but this book reveals much more about her eventful life. Raised in post-war Sunderland, where life was "a sunny experience, full of meat-paste sandwiches and Sunday school" Kate has courageously reported from all over the world since she joined the BBC in 1969. These memoirs encompass her reporting from, inter alia, Northern Ireland, the Middle East, Tiananmen Square and, of course, the Gulf War of 1991. From the siege at the Iranian embassy which shot her to public acclaim, to an alarming encounter with a drunken Libyan army commander who shot her at point-blank range, the chaos and mayhem of desert warfare to Gracie Field's bizarre funeral, Kate has cooly kept us in touch through her reasoned and level reporting. Although an intensely private person, Kate Adie also divulges how, despite being sent to outlandish places at a moment's notice, she's maintained her interest in sailing, singing, theatre and friends who tolerated her strange hours, and what it's like to be a woman in a man's world.